An IBM supercomputer took on Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in an epic battle of humans vs. artificial intelligence on Monday. But the Jeopardy! contest was only the latest in a long-running battle. TIME takes a look at other competitions that tested humans' abilities against machines

The Terminator

By Ishaan TharoorTuesday, Feb. 15, 2011

Everett

The Terminator and its sequels were the archetype of the man-vs.-machine clash. Initially set in a postapocalyptic future where the remnants of a beleaguered humanity hold out against a legion of robots bent on their total annihilation, the series brings the story back  through various feats of time travel  into the present. There, a robot assassin, in the bulky, inhuman shape of Arnold Schwarzenegger, is sent to kill the woman who will give birth to a man destined to lead mankind against the coming robot onslaught. What follows is bone-crushing, exoskeleton-melting mayhem  an epic dose of man-on-machine ultraviolence that rendered Schwarzenegger not just a governor, but a Governator.